Saturday, February 16, 2013

FATHER, SON AND HOLY WAR (Documentary) (1994)

As a follow up to his earlier
brilliant documentary ‘In the Name of God’,
perhaps the initial aim of Anand Patwardhan behind making this film was to
make its audience aware and think about the ugly, thoughtless face of mass
hysteria that spread violence in the name of religion and followed the blind
bandwagon of rampage and riots soon after demolition of Babri Masjid. But as
they interviewed the mass, checking and counter checking opinions of mass
and started gathering the material it also becomes a significant & thought
provoking document of prevalent mythical Indian masculine concept (read
‘Mardangi’) ingrained in collective psyche and consciousness of long patriarchal
society. It begins with documenting the Mumbai riots as aftermath of Babri
Masjid demolition. Shops were burnt
& looted, a shocking captured reality of a burnt dead body lying in the middle
of the road where people are commuting while having an indifferent glance at
hard reality. But what’s more horrifying is the recorded voices of mass
proclaimed that they really enjoyed doing this mad violence. The recorded reaction
of one of youth is - “Achcha laga, majaa aa raha hai. Enjoy kiya bas. Wo
Karenge to hum bhi karenge naa! Sab ko chance mangta hai iss duniya mein…humne
chudiyan nahin pahen rakhkhi hai.”

The film is divided in two parts.
The first part titled as ‘Trial by Fire’ is direct reference to Sita’s Agnee
Pariksha; a questionable dogma seeded in Hindu epic. This part raised many
pertinent questions & key points about how this concept of violent and
virile man took the shape of dominance and made the opposite gender servile
under their power and dominance. It scratched the history & showed us how
the earlier society that worships the feminine gender as divine mother feeling
the threat in later years and established patriarch society replaced with
various religious symbols and types all over the world including India.
In a follow up, it focuses on incident of Roopkunwarji’s Sati case that shook
the nation. The camera captures the helpless brother who remained unaware about
her sacrifice till it happened but ultimately surrendered to his fellow
community members while forcefully joining the bandwagon to call that being
Sati her sister transformed as universal mother.The divine Hindu intervention
empowered and dominated by patriarch society felt sudden insecure fear that
made the stronghold of caste system and gender inequality programmed in the
mindsets of people stamped with religious dogma and cultural purity. Behind
those dogmas of child marriage, sati sacrifice or veiled woman and many other
atrocities against women for long. It also documented another controversial
case of Shahnaz bano and portrayed the questionable Muslim law of divorce
juxtaposed against constitutional rights of Muslim wife.

The second part satirically
titled as ‘Hero Pharmacy’, pointed out how religious warfare driven by Hindu
fundamentalist syndicate Shiv Sena and fascist provocateur Bal Thackeray
idolized Shivaji to encash vote banks and gain unchallenged power in 90s post
Babri demolition. It not only gave Shiv Sena an unchallenged ugly alternate
power establishing but also ignite the flame of enmity between two communities. It is quite ridiculous to watch the man who became a
known face while playing Duryodhana in India’s hugely admired popular serial
‘Mahabharata’ addressing the crowd with Shiv Sena sloganeering- “Garv se kaho
ham hindu hai” and then he added for what he’s called- “if you are Hindu and if
you want to live fearlessly, your vote must belong to Shiv Sena.” Similarly we
see the voices of Sikhs demanding ‘Khalistan’ and Muslim Imam demanding freedom
and sacrifice. This celebrity and stars unawared about their social
responsibility poisoning the mindsets that gave rise to an immediate riots. I
can’t resist tears watching that shocking and insulting tragedy of a Muslim
lady who confessed the horror happened to her facing recording camera or that
mill worker old man whose young and bright medical studying daughter was killed
by bomb explosion; a successive reply to country’s majority community. The only
ray of hope lies in various NGOs working as Ekta Committees to re-establish the
faith & humanity between two communities appealing ‘Prem se kaho hum insaan
hai’ instead of provocating ‘Garv se kaho ham hindu hai.’

The film also focuses deep rooted
psyche and myths of Indian masculine and virile macho man. The film showed us
80’s violent and mindless revenge film posters and its all powerful bollywood
heroes, the fascination of WWF wrestling and body building exhibition shows. It is
stimulating to catch the intentions of these macho production factories that instigated
religious myths and ill doctrinated a generation suffered under insecurity and fake
identity crisis.

Hats off to Mr Patwardhan for
gifting another though provoking and well balanced document without being
preachy or didactic anywhere. Instead of those earlier Government funded boring
informative junk documentary cinema which pampered and played ruling
government’s tune, this independent and laudable effort is interesting, bold
and so direct that shows us the mirror of directionless society shuffling
between misleading double face of politics and religion under hoax of cultural
crisis.

About Me

Born in 1977 and professionally lecturer,I love to explore life in all its intricacies around me. Reading-imagining-thinking, watching/analysing films, listening music are more than passion- obsession and compulsion for me to survive like air, water and food. Only like minded ones can understand some of my lunatic passion while reading this blog.I also love to meet people, hanging out different places, observe people while trying to adjust the struggling identities of being animal and human.